Janet Whitmore book review of The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh edited by Stefan Koldehoff and Chris Stolwijk Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 17, no. 2 (Autumn 2018) Citation: Janet Whitmore, book review of “The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh edited by Stefan Koldehoff and Chris Stolwijk,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 17, no. 2 (Autumn 2018), https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2018.17.2.15. Published by: Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art Notes: This PDF is provided for reference purposes only and may not contain all the functionality or features of the original, online publication. License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons License. Whitmore: The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 17, no. 2 (Autumn 2018) Stefan Koldehoff and Chris Stolwijk, editors, The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh. Brussels: Mercatorfonds and Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 2017. 327 pp.; 147 color and 31 b&w illus.; chronology; list of clients; concordance; bibliography; index. $45.00 ISBN: 978-94-6230-166-5 In recent decades, the history of collecting has increasingly become the focus of art historical research, beginning with the study of the creation of private art collections as well as the history of museum collections. Although both of these research areas can be fraught with issues of confidentiality and security concerns, none are more so than the commercial history of art dealers and galleries. The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh is a welcome first step to addressing that subject. The opportunity to present this material would not have been possible without the donation of the Thannhauser Gallery archive to the Central Archive for German and International Art Market Research (ZADIK) Cologne in 2005. [1] The news of this donation caught the attention of Stefan Koldehoff, a Cologne-based journalist and researcher who is also the art editor of Deutschelandfunk (German Public Radio). As the author of numerous books on art, including two on Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Koldehoff was particularly curious about the van Gogh paintings that were handled by the Thannhauser Gallery in the first half of the twentieth century. After discussing ways to present the material with Günter Herzog, Head of Research at ZADIK, he proposed the idea of a book to the Van Gogh Museum. The result is a collection of scholarly essays, a catalogue of the van Gogh paintings that were once owned by the Thannhauser Gallery (and some that turned out not to be by van Gogh after all), and a chronology, client list, and concordance that provide essential tools for understanding the information from the Gallery’s archive. In short, this is a working document for art historical research as well as a fascinating story of German art dealing during a time of historical upheaval and chaos. The scope of the book is ambitious: the authors set out to examine the history of the Thannhauser Gallery, focusing on its promotion of van Gogh’s art, but they also hoped to present a fuller understanding of how art dealers conducted their business and how German 227 Whitmore: The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 17, no. 2 (Autumn 2018) dealers worked collaboratively to establish a canon of modern art within a culture that was officially opposed to modernist ideas. The first chapter “An Invaluable Resource: Preliminary Notes on the Thannhauser Archive” introduces the reader to the background of the gallery and offers a glimpse of the topics that will be addressed in detail in later chapters. Authors Koldehoff and Chris Stolwijk, General Director of the RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History, set the stage with an overview of the practices that create a successful art gallery, noting that marketing must be “founded on trust between a company and its customers” (14). [2] This is fundamental in a business that depends on exclusivity and confidentiality, and often involves large sums of money. The ledgers, stock books, photographs, exhibition catalogues, and client files in the Thannhauser archive provide an unparalleled resource for studying exactly how the gallery functioned. The authors examine the Thannhauser legacy from its beginnings in 1905 when Heinrich Thannhauser partnered with Franz Josef Brakl in opening an art gallery in Munich to the final years of the business in New York City in the 1960s. The story of the gallery is occasionally complicated, not least because of the ever expanding anti-Semitism in Germany, but Koldehoff and Stolwijk maintain a clear narrative thread so that readers can follow the development of the business as it unfolds in a very uncertain social and political environment. In 1909 Heinrich Thannhauser parted ways with Brakl in order to open the Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser at Theatinerstrasse 7. In 1912, his son Justin joined him as an assistant in the gallery, working there until 1914 when he reported for military service in Kaiser Wilhelm II’s army. When he returned from the war, he began his art historical education in earnest, traveling to Berlin, Florence, and Paris where he studied with some of the legendary pioneers in the field: art historians Heinrich Wölfflin and Adolph Goldschmidt and French philosopher Henri Bergson. In addition, he built on the relationships with the art dealers Paul Cassirer and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler that his father had already established. Heinrich Thannhauser’s goal was to create a gallery space that “prioritized the study of great works of art” and that provided a venue for emerging modernist avant-garde artists (20). To that end, he hosted the first Munich exhibitions of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in 1909 (and in 1911); and one of the first major shows of Pablo Picasso in Germany in 1913. In his own words, Heinrich Thannhauser’s philosophy was that: “The gallery will be ruled by artistic progress, the recognition of artistic individuality, and the promotion of aspiring individual artists. The Moderne Galerie will draw into its sphere of interest all that is fresh, powerful, distinct, modern in the best sense, whether or not an illustrious ‘name’ stands behind it” (21). [3] In 1917, Justin took on the responsibility for expanding the Moderne Galerie’s visibility among potential US clients, and also began to investigate the possibility of opening a branch gallery in Lucerne, Switzerland. He moved to Lucerne in 1919, running the gallery with his cousin Siegfried Rosengart until 1921 when his father’s failing health required his return to Munich. Rosengart would continue to manage the Lucerne gallery for years to come, serving clients such as the Cone sisters from Baltimore and Samuel Courtauld from London, to whom he sold Edouard Manet’s painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère in 1926 (22). Back in Munich, Justin and Heinrich continued to promote the work of Impressionists, post- Impressionists, and the next generation of contemporary artists, including Picasso. The 228 Whitmore: The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 17, no. 2 (Autumn 2018) cultural freedom of the city, however, was diminishing in direct proportion to the rise of the Nazi party, along with the anti-Semitism of the citizenry. When the Thannhausers decided to close the gallery in Munich and move to the more sophisticated and tolerant city of Berlin, the public reaction was immediate: “This news strikes like a trumpet blast all those who know full well what Munich is losing with the departure of Thannhauser, this outstanding patron of the arts, and with the closing of his gallery, which is inextricably tied to Munich’s history and her artistic reputation” (22). So wrote the editor-in-chief of the Münchner Sonntags-Anzeiger in September 1928 when the news became public. At this point, Heinrich Thannhauser retired from the business and Rosengart became the sole proprietor of the gallery in Lucerne, changing the name to Galerie Rosengart in September 1928. The Moderne Galerie opened its doors in Berlin under the direction of Justin Thannhauser and his chief business manager, Paul Roemer. The relationship between the Berlin and Lucerne galleries remained extremely close, with routine consultations about potential clients and exhibitions as well as frequent transfers of paintings from one location to the other (23). In addition, Thannhauser and Rosengart shared joint ownership of artworks well into the late 1940s; this strategy, which began as a method of financing the purchase of expensive pieces, would also become a means of safeguarding ownership—to some degree—as the Nazis assumed power in Germany. Like his father, Justin Thannhauser believed that a gallery should be designed to support the art on display, and fortunately for scholars today, there are numerous photographs of these spaces in the Thannhauser archive. The elegant façade of the Berlin gallery, at Bellevuestrasse 13, is especially worthy of note as an example of modernist design; a single pane of curved plate glass, resting on a low stone base, forms the street wall of the building, welcoming viewers to step inside and enjoy the exhibition (56–57). Although architectural design is not the subject of this book, the visual evidence provided by the abundant photographs suggests that Thannhauser was well aware of modernist developments at the Bauhaus in Dessau, and most likely, the work of French art déco designers as well. During the 1930s, Thannhauser was very conscious of the volatile political situation that he faced from the ruling Nazi party; not only was he Jewish, but he was also promoting the so- called “degenerate” art that Adolf Hitler despised—and he was conducting business in the capital of the Third Reich. As a result, the art dealer kept a low profile and maintained a fluid movement of his artworks between Berlin and Lucerne; he also established collaborative relationships with George Petit Galerie in Paris and with Federico C.